We can't borrow our way to prosperity

When life is fair, the state Legislature will pass a law requiring that any borrowing referendum passed by a local government entity must receive a 75 percent majority approval from the voters and all projects must be approved individually. This borrowing nonsense as a solution to runaway spending has got to stop. Officials will say nothing will ever get approved. So be it.

Currently there is no cap imposed on debt millage within the state as there is with operational millage, so the new answer appears we will just borrow money for everything and pay it back sometime in the future through increases on the debt side of your property tax bill.

What are we teaching our children when our only solutions to the financial problems we ourselves have caused is to borrow, borrow and borrow? Florence, Hampton, Colleton and Jasper counties - and a few others - want laws passed that will allow them to borrow millions of dollars to pay for day-to-day school operating costs. Those folks already pay taxes to the state, which legally has the responsibility to educate all children in the state, so let them fund it. Where is that money going and who thinks borrowing to pay day-to-day bills is going to solve the problem?

In our own Beaufort County, we borrow money to build schools that are not needed, we propose to build roads that are not warranted. We bond money, a fancy name for legalized loan sharking, to buy land that through our greed we have jeopardized forever and call it the Rural and Critical Lands Program. It is "critical" because we make it that way by slowly destroying our environment in the name of development. If it was their own money would they spend it?

We talk about buying land for commerce parks on the taxpayer's dime and then giving it away in an effort to attract businesses to relocate here. Governments now propose "public-private" partnerships, another code name for making the taxpayers bear the burden of some risky venture.

How many times have you heard some official brag about their entity's wonderful bond rating? To me that is just an indication that you cannot handle your finances and must continue to fund your runaway spending through long-term loans that become someone else's problem in the future. Banks see taxpayers as bottomless pits of money.

Next year, 2012, the 1 percent sales tax we placed on ourselves to build miles and miles of infrastructure will cease and should revert back by that amount to every citizen. Want to bet there isn't some sudden need for a new referendum?

This mentality of "it is better to borrow than live within our means" has got to stop. We will never borrow our way into prosperity.

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